Americans innocent, but guilty from eating

Were Eating More, and Enjoying It Less,
blared the headline for Candy Sagons Food section article in the
April 19 Washington Post. Is it any wonder why with the medias
persistent attacks on the food industry?

According to a new Pew Research Center survey, only 39 percent of
Americans say they greatly enjoy eating a drop from the 48 percent
who felt that way in a 1989 Gallup poll, Sagon reported, noting the
number among those who consider themselves overweight is
significantly lower than 17 years ago.

People are feeling guilty, Sagon quoted Thomas Wadden of the
University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, adding, Theyre
forever checking their conscience before digging into that ice cream
sundae.

News outlets like
The New York Times
are helping to pile on the guilt, while driving readers away from
personal responsibility by blaming fast food makers themselves.

The same day as Sagons Post article, The New York Times ran a story
critical of McDonalds fast food restaurants for beefing up its
bottom line by aggressively marketing its dollar-menu items to young
people.

McDonalds has marketed the Dollar Menu to teenagers, young adults
and minorities who are already plagued with an especially high
incidence of obesity, complained Times writer Melanie Warner.

Warner went on to cite critics of the fast food industry, including
Jerome Williams, a communications professor at The University of
Texas at Austin. Williams attacked McDonalds for making Big Macs
and double cheeseburgers seem fun and exciting to young black and
Hispanic consumers. Williams called that marketing demographic a
segment where you have these huge obesity issues.

The Business & Media Institute has previously
documented Warners slanted reporting, on
soft drink and
fast food producers. The Business & Media Institute also has released
special reports on the medias
coverage of the so-called
obesity
epidemic.

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